


9pm, December 31st, Abu Dhabi (It's Always Midnight Somewhere)

by Aramley



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-29
Updated: 2009-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-17 19:55:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aramley/pseuds/Aramley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Rafa spends New Year's Eve 2008 in Abu Dhabi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	9pm, December 31st, Abu Dhabi (It's Always Midnight Somewhere)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://aramleys-words.livejournal.com/2455.html).

When he thinks of Abu Dhabi, he still gets this image of the desert: arid, dry heat under an electric blue, cloudless sky. Not the kind of conditions he'd generally associate with New Year's Eve; not that New Year in Manacor is exactly ice and snow, and granted, Abu Dhabi's not that hot at this time of year, but it's still comparatively warm enough for Rafa to shrug off his hoodie as soon as he gets out of the airport into the full glare of the sun.

The exhibition organisers have sent a driver to pick him up, and the man insists on carrying Rafa's bags - except for the racket case, which Rafa never entrusts to anyone, save maybe Toni - out to the car, sitting sleek and glossy black under the streaming sun. When he left Mallorca it was cloudy and just a little bit chilly, by Spanish standards anyway. Now he finds himself digging around in his carry-on to find the sunglasses stowed hastily there as an afterthought as he packed to leave Manacor. The flight was only a little over five hours, but it feels kind of like he's stepped off the plane into a different world.

-

The hotel that the exhibition organisers have booked all the players into is big and new and opulent. Rafa's room has a king-size bed all decked out in satin covers, and a mini bar, and a bathroom glinting with marble and chrome. The big windows in the living area double as glass doors leading out onto a balcony that has an incredible view of the city, and Rafa stands there for a while watching the slow crawl of cars in the streets below, and the dazzle of sunlight on the water in the bay. Vaguely, he wonders if the other players are here yet. And then he wonders if Roger is in Abu Dhabi, or if he's going to spend New Year in his apartment in Dubai, since neither he nor Rafa will be playing until January 2nd. Dubai can't be that far away, Rafa thinks, though really he has only the most abstract notions of how these places fit together on a map. There are so many places in the world that exist for him only as the names of tournaments, disconnected from any real sense of geography. On the tour, distance is time rather than space: the length of a flight from one place to the next.

Thinking about distance, he can't help but let his thoughts wander back to Mallorca, to his family celebrating the new year together back in Manacor. He'd insisted that Toni stay with his family for the New Year, insisted that he would be fine travelling alone and that Toni could join him in a day or so. It's only here, alone on New Year's Eve in a luxurious, anonymous hotel room, that he feels a little bit lonely.

-

He tries to waste some time in the room, unpacking his clothes to get a head start on his new year's resolution to be more tidy. That only takes a little while, though, and afterwards, bored and listless, he lies down on the bed, stretching out with his body in a big pool of sunlight coming through the glass doors. He shuts his eyes, basking like a cat in the warmth until the shrill chirp of his cellphone on the bedside table jolts him sharply back into awareness.

 _Party in my room!_ The text is from Roddick. Rafa really doesn't feel like a party; he's tired and a little lonely, and what he really wants to do is sprawl out on the hotel's ridiculously luxurious kingsize and sleep about fourteen hours through.

So, _sorry, jetlag_ , he writes back, _have fun. happy new year :)_ And then he tosses the phone down towards the end of the bed, lies back and closes his eyes.

It takes only a few seconds before the cellphone starts to vibrate over the covers. Rafa sits up and reaches for it, flipping it open without even checking who's calling, because he's certain that it will be Toni, or else his mother, making sure he's arrived and everything is okay.

"Hola."

"Rafa, man, get your ass over here." It's not Toni or his mother; it's Andy Roddick.

"Andy?"

"Come on, Rafa. It's New Year's Eve. Come over."

"Andy, you are playing tomorrow, no?"

"Well, yeah, but look, it's not like I'm throwing a rave or something over here, it's just a couple of guys hanging out, that's all. Come over."

In the background of Andy's call Rafa can hear music, and voices, and the sounds throw into sharp relief the quietness of his own room. Besides, he thinks, it's not like he has to play until the 2nd, and it is New Year's Eve, after all.

"I can hear you thinking about it," Andy says after a second or two, and then Rafa sighs and says, "Okay, you have convinced me, I will come."

"Sweet," says Andy, and then he gives Rafa the number of his room, which is only on the next floor up from Rafa's. After Andy hangs up Rafa feels just a little bit of regret; he really is tired, and Toni would almost certainly disapprove. But he doesn't have to stay long, he reckons, and besides which - and he can't quite account for the slight twist in his stomach at the thought - there's just the remotest possibility that Roger will be there. They haven't seen each other since Paris, that last chance meeting just after Rafa had retired and just before Roger followed suit; save for a few texts over the Christmas season it was they last time they'd spoken, too.

So Rafa gets up from the bed, and goes into the gleaming ensuite to wash away the traces of the long flight before he changes his shirt and heads out the door.

-

"Rafa! Come on in, man," Andy Roddick says, opening the door wider to let Rafa pass through. James Blake is already there, and so is Andy Murray and a couple of other people that Rafa recognises vaguely as being various members of their teams. Roger isn't there. "You all alone?"

"Toni is coming tomorrow," Rafa says, "with Maymo. And maybe Xisca." He's trying really hard to remember Roddick's fiancee's name; isn't it some kind of place? Paris?

"Cool," Roddick says, and he takes a drink from the beer he's holding. "Brooklyn's with her family in the US. She had to work, she couldn't make it."

"Oh, sorry."

"Nah, it's okay. Just us guys - guess we'll all just have to make do with kissing each other at midnight. Hey, you want a beer?"

-

The party is good fun. He has a beer, and then another beer, and the third one has him relaxed enough that it doesn't matter that he doesn't really know these people, or that he sometimes misses things because of his imperfect English, especially when combined with Blake and Roddick's American slang or Andy Murray's accent.

Rafa is busy kicking Andy Murray's ass at Wii bowling when there's a knock at the door, and so he can only see out of his peripheral vision when Roddick goes up to open it. But he hears perfectly clearly Roddick's cry of, "Roger, man, glad you could make it!" and then he has to make a real effort not to turn around and look as Roger enters the room. It shakes his concentration though, and he sends the ball veering off practically into the gutter, much to Murray's glee. He manages to recoup a spare with his next throw, but the damage is done, and with three strikes in a row against Rafa's distinctly lack-lustre efforts Andy Murray snatches the game. He grins and rolls up his shirt sleeve triumphantly, showing the wirey bicep muscle, but it's good natured and everyone laughs, so Rafa laughs as well and rolls up his own sleeve, placing his big tanned left bicep next to Murray's pale littler one, and Murray says, "Oh all right then, you win that one."

From somewhere behind them Roddick calls out, "Hey, why don't you just measure your dicks and be done with it?" Murray turns around and tells Roddick to shut the fuck up, and then when Rafa turns around as well he finds himself looking straight at Roger Federer.

Roger's laughing, watching Roddick and Murray bicker. He looks well - really well, better than Rafa's seen him for a while; rested and healthy and happy. And he looks elegant, of course, like he always does, even though he's wearing just a simple black blazer with jeans and a t-shirt. His hair's a little bit shorter, but still long enough that it falls across his forehead, so that he has to flick it back every now and then with a quick movement of his hand. And then Roger meets his eyes, and Rafa has to force himself not to look away quickly, in a way that would make it obvious that he was staring.

"Hey, Rafa," Roger says. He lifts the drink he's holding up, like in a toast. "Happy new year."

"Hello," Rafa says. "Happy new year."

And then Roddick shouts, "Hey Roger, come show us what you're made of," and Roger has to go and play Wii tennis, which it turns out he's amazing at, of course, like he's amazing at everything else.

-

It's not until later that Rafa gets the chance to talk to Roger properly. The others are busy playing a game of doubles in Wii tennis, and Rafa spots Roger hovering at the edge of the crowd of people huddled around the TV, watching Blake and Roddick and Murray and his physio or someone flail about so that from the periphery of that group it's hard to tell whether they're trying to beat each other at tennis or beat each other up. Rafa makes his way around the back of the crowd to where Roger's standing, near the big double doors out onto the balcony.

"Hello, Roger," he says.

Roger smiles. "Hi, Rafa. How are you?"

"Very well, thank you. My knees are much better now. Good as new, no?"

"Good, that's good," Roger says, still smiling. "Or maybe not so good for everyone else on the tour."

Rafa laughs. "I hope. I am looking forward to playing again." And then, because it's true, "I am looking forward to playing you."

Roger's smile is softer at that. "Come outside? I could use a little air."

Roger is surprisingly stealthy, sliding the balcony doors open with barely the slightest sound and making sure they shut behind him and Rafa so that they are totally alone on the balcony; alone except for Abu Dhabi, that is, laid out for them to see, a glitter of lights on a dark background. They go to the edge of the balcony, leaning elbows on the balustrade, enjoying the coolness of the night breeze after the crowded warmth of Roddick's room. The heat has dissipated somewhat with the setting of the sun, but it's by no means cold, comfortable enough to be bare-armed, as Rafa is, or like Roger, still wearing his blazer.

"How was your Christmas?" Rafa asks. It sounds odd, a little bit stilted, and once again he curses his imperfect English.

"Good," Roger says. It's dark, and Roger is illuminated only by a sliver of light coming from the room behind them through a narrow gap in the curtains. "Relaxing, you know? How was yours?"

"Oh, you know," Rafa says, shrugging. "Big Spanish family - very noisy, lot of food." Roger laughs a little at that, nodding like he can picture it, the big Nadal family conversing noisily over a table groaning with food.

"That sounds nice," he says.

"Yes," says Rafa, smiling. "You are not with Mirka tonight?"

"Not yet," Roger says. "She's at the hotel. We're going to have dinner later. Just a quiet night, you know?"

"So you are not staying for midnight?"

"Oh, no. I should go soon. I've got to be back well before before midnight," Roger says.

"Or else you turn into pumpkin?" Rafa says, and Roger laughs.

"Something like that," he says, smiling at Rafa. The night breeze ruffles his hair a little over his forehead, and he brushes it back with a flick of his hand, absently, and then he smiles at Rafa, right into Rafa's eyes.

"Well, you know," Rafa says, "is always midnight somewhere, right?"

Roger glances at his watch - expensive but elegant; a lot like Roger, Rafa thinks. "Wait," Roger says, "what's the time difference between here and Mallorca?"

"Is three hours, I think. Why?" And he glances down at his own watch, which he hasn't yet remembered to set to the local time, and then he sees Roger's meaning. "Oh! Is almost midnight."

"Five minutes to go. You making any resolutions this year, Rafa?"

Rafa shrugs. "Play good tennis. Be happy."

Roger smiles. "Those are good resolutions." He looks away, out over the city and its lights. For a while he is very quiet, lost in thought.

"Hey," Rafa says, and Roger seems to shake himself out of his thoughts, bringing himself forcibly back to reality, to Rafa. "Nearly midnight. Only one minute left. In Mallorca, anyway," he adds, feeling a little foolish. But Roger smiles and looks down at his own watch.

"Ready for the countdown?" he says, and he holds out his arm so Rafa can see. "Get ready - all right, look, here we go: ten, nine -"

Rafa laughs, and leans closer to watch the progress of the little glinting second hand on Roger's watch. "Eight, seven, six -"

"Five, four, three - "

"Two, one - " and then together, as the second hand disappears under the minute hand, fixed at 12, "Midnight!"

Roger looks up from the watch, smiling at Rafa. He bumps Rafa's shoulder with his own, but then doesn't move away, a warm presence pressed against Rafa's side. "Happy New Year, Rafa!"

Rafa remembers then Roddick's offhand remark, about them all having to kiss each other at midnight. And maybe it's the three beers, or maybe it's because he's here in Abu Dhabi, half a world away from everyone he loves, and with Roger so close and Roger being so nice, and it's New Year's Eve after all, but he leans in quickly, intending just to press his lips against Roger's cheek and then make a joke about it - but at the last moment Roger turns his head, just enough that Rafa's lips brush against his own.

For a second Rafa's too shocked even to pull back; he can barely process the feel of Roger's lips, dry and soft under his own, and the scent of Roger's hair and aftershave - and then, worse, Roger parts his lips, just a little, but enough to make the press of their lips into a real, undeniable kiss.

As kisses go, it's pretty chaste, almost innocent - almost not a kiss at all, really, except for Roger's slightly parted mouth, the gentle movement of his lips against Rafa's, and Rafa's tentative return of the kiss. There's no _tongue_ or anything like that, nothing overtly sexual; it's not like Rafa's about to shove Roger against a wall or something (although it occurs to him then that he _could_ , and that maybe it's something that he _wants_ to do, and he can feel the blush warming across his cheeks just thinking about it). Roger puts one hand on Rafa's waist while he kisses him, his palm warm through the thin material of Rafa's t-shirt. It's like the way Rafa remembers his first teenage kisses being, when kissing was a whole uncharted country in itself and everything past it unimaginable, when kissing wasn't just a short stop on the way to sex.

Though it seems to stretch out endlessly, in reality the kiss lasts maybe ten or fifteen seconds at most. After that, Roger pulls back slowly - not too far, though, still close enough that his breath is warm on Rafa's cheek, and he leaves his hand on Rafa's waist, warm and steady, anchoring them together. His mouth is still parted slightly, the corners tilted slightly upwards in a small, gentle smile, and his eyes are warm on Rafa's. The soft curls have fallen forward onto his forehead again, only this time he doesn't flick them away. Rafa thinks, _he's beautiful_ , and then he swallows, his throat dry, his heart pounding.

"I am - I - sorry, sorry," he says, even though - even though maybe he's not, not really. And Roger, with his soft secret smile and the heat of his hand on Rafa's waist, doesn't look like a man who's been imposed on.

Roger shakes his head gently. "No, don't be," he says, quietly. He presses his fingers where they rest against Rafa's waist, hard but affectionate. Rafa can only stare at him. He's never kissed a man before, and now here he is, having just kissed _Roger Federer_ on the balcony of Andy Roddick's hotel room in Abu Dhabi, the day before the start of the new tennis season. The impossibility of it makes him dizzy.

"I don't know what to say," says Rafa, which is so, so true. So Roger leans in and kisses Rafa again, this time just a quick press of lips before he pulls back, this time fully, taking his hand off Rafa's waist and putting some distance between them. He glances briefly at the glass doors leading back into the room, and Rafa has a brief flash of terror, the danger of what they just did twisting in his stomach, like looking down from an unimaginable height. If Roddick or Murray or Blake or anyone in that room had glanced away from the TV, had come looking for them - but they hadn't. They're safe.

"I have to go now," Roger says. "But, I'll see you soon, okay?" And Rafa gets the feeling he's not just talking about their press commitments, or the possibility of their playing each other in a few days.

"Okay," he says. "Okay."

-

After Roger leaves, Rafa waits maybe half an hour before making his own excuses. He tells them that he's tired after the flight, that he's going to try and get an early night to be well rested for tomorrow; but in truth his mind is racing, sparking with flashbacks - the exact feel of Roger's lips parting underneath his own, the way his t-shirt had muted the heat of Roger's palm against his skin hardly at all. They make it difficult to concentrate.

When he gets back to his room, he checks his phone. There is a message from Toni. Nothing from Roger. Well, that was to be expected, Rafa thinks, and for the first time he seems to confront the reality of Mirka. But he shakes that thought aside, just for now; for now he lets himself run one thoughtful finger over his lips, tracing where Roger's had pressed against them. He knows this makes him about as silly as any schoolgirl has ever been over a first kiss, but right now he absolves himself of any need to care about that.

Out on the balcony, he leans on the balustrade and watches Abu Dhabi glitter. He thinks about the new year, breaking step by step over the world; and about the new season, with all its challenges, the triumphs and the disappointments that lie ahead. And wrapped up in both, this thing with Roger, unexpected, new now and fragile. But this beginning feels somehow auspicious.

He thinks about what he'd said to Roger, about his resolutions: Play good tennis. Be happy. Roger was right, they are good resolutions. And Rafa, looking out over Abu Dhabi and forward into the unknowable future of the year ahead, vows to keep them.


End file.
